Singapore Deploys New Weaponry in SARS Battle

Stroll by with a fever, and it will beam red…..

Stroll by with a fever, and it will beam red….. Singapore’s latest weapon to combat the deadly SARS virus is a high-tech thermal-imaging thermometer that automatically checks the temperature of air travellers as they step off the plane. Walking through the sensor generates a heat-sensitive image. A burst of red dots on a computer screen depicts a fever and nurses stand ready to whisk passengers away for further tests. The system, built by government-backed Singapore Technologies, was originally designed for military use. Since Friday the “Infrared Fever Screening System” has greeted passengers arriving at Changi airport from southern China and Hong Kong, two areas hardest hit by SARS. Singapore, where 13 people have died from SARS in less than a month, unveiled aggressive steps in recent weeks to contain the virus, quarantining hundreds of residents, temporarily closing all schools and screening travellers at air and sea ports. But new infections keep coming, including five cases reported by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday to bring Singapore’s total to 162, the world’s fourth highest. A further 91 people are isolated in hospital after displaying SARS-like symptoms. Changi plans to install eight more walk-through heat sensors next week to screen passengers arriving from other SARS-hit regions including Canada, Taiwan and Vietnam, officials said. “It doesn’t slow down the process of people stepping off the plane,” said Albert Tjoeng, a spokesman at the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. “You just walk by it and if you have a fever a red light will be beam.” For two weeks, air force paramedics in camouflage fatigues and surgical masks have worked with nurses to manually take the temperature of air passengers, giving a chilling look to Asia’s fourth-biggest air hub. The airport has emptied as travellers heed advice by the World Health Organisation to avoid Singapore and other nations affected by SARS. Visitor arrivals to Singapore dropped 56 percent in the first week of April compared to a year earlier, the government said this week. To further contain the virus, the government hopes to launch a new SARS diagnostic test this week. The state-run Genome Institute of Singapore said the test would take three hours and may be sensitive enough to detect the virus in its early stages before a person develops SARS symptoms such as high fever and a dry cough. “We need to find the kit, get it tested, validated and then applied for general use. We will put out the kits on Friday,” Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said in a news conference. He said Singapore is also testing all other kits by other countries. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States is working to license and distribute a quick test for the virus, so doctors can tell which patients have SARS as opposed to other forms of pneumonia. Like other SARS tests under development, Singapore plans to use a polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, test, which finds little bits of genetic material from the virus and amplifies them so they can be seen. Singapore and the World Health Organisation have so far relied on chest X-rays to diagnose a certain pattern of pneumonia, along with clinical examinations and contact tracing to determine if someone has been exposed to SARS. A hint of normalcy came on Wednesday as 200,000 primary school children returned to classes for the first time since a shutdown of the school system on March 27 to contain the virus. It marked the final stage of a three-phased reopening of classes. But even that innocent image is now transformed. All childcare centres have isolation rooms, parents must sign health declaration forms and children must now be visibly screened before entering schools.(Reuters; Jason Szep; Wed April 16, 2003 05:31 PM ET)